Today I arrived in Puglia (aka Apulia). I have been invited on a FAM trip, which is a 'familiarization' trip for people in the Travel Industry. The goal of a FAM is to get professionals familiarized with a specific place in order provide us with the knowledge and know how to promote and sell it, thus increasing tourism. I have never been to this region before, the most south I've been is to the island of Sicily and I'm looking forward to experiencing all new types of sights, sounds and smells of the south. Oh and of course .... FOOD is a high priority!

To be more concise, I arrived in Bari, actually. I had to take 3 flights to get here – Newark to Frankfurt, Germany, Frankfurt to Milan and Milan to Bari. My first experience with connecting flights. I was apprehensive to even go on this trip when I saw the flight schedule because I’m used to flying direct into Rome or Florence, or Athens if you will. However, beggars can’t be choosers and this was a free trip. I decided that I was focusing on the small things and not the great experience I would have in this region that I would have never thought of visiting. So I sucked it up and decided to go.
Right now I am at our first hotel – the Tentua Cocevola in Andria.

I arrived in the dark but the property looks quite expansive and I will be sure to walk around the grounds tomorrow. I ended up getting here late. I had to wait for 5 other peoples’ planes to land for us all to be transferred to the hotel. So I sat on the bus for like 2 hours. Thank God I had my mp3 player!I am quite exhausted! I didn’t sleep on the planes any. I was actually a little excited to by flying into Germany, though. I mean, I knew I wouldn’t have any time to go explore the city, but something about Frankfurt raised a magnetic pull inside of me. Plus, I was excited to try some German food in the airport! Once we arrived at the airport, it was a little uneventful, I spent some time wandering around and finding my gate. I was searching for somebody to take my work AMEX card so I could get something to eat, but only one place I went to accepted it and I ended up getting a chocolate croissant and a cappuccino for breakfast. So much for German cuisine.
The cool thing about the airport is they have Camel Smoking Booths throughout all the gates, so you can light up inside, if you feel the desire, without having to exit the airport and go back through the long, meandering security lines. That is totally awesome! God forbid you see something like that in America! Plus each gate has free coffee, tea, water and newspapers; another plus in my book.
So now that I am here, sitting in my room, I am feeling the jet lag/exhaustion/lack of sleep. It is 6pm, Italian time, which is 6 hours ahead of Eastern Standard American time, and we are supposed to have dinner at 8. I hope I can stay up!
The hotel is really nice, and huge. It’s like a villa. My room has 1 double bed and a twin bed. Pretty cool.
I’m so happy we don’t have to share rooms! My only gripe about the hotel is … there is no bar soap! I couldn’t wait to wash the airplane off of my face and I was super excited to see what types of toiletries I had in the bathroom, but to my disappointment – only shampoo/body wash. What the hell? I have to wash my face with body wash?! Screw it, I did it anyway. I’ll probably end up having a breakout. But everything could have been worse- some people ended up having FOUR flights - and they still aren’t here yet.I want to sleep so badly but I know I have to stay up for dinner and to meet everybody.
First impressions of Bari – well, it’s hard to get an impression of anywhere from the airport because they are always so far away from the city center, but it seems very untouched and untainted by tourism, which is a good thing. The rolling, seemingly limitless green of nature that I saw on our ride to the hotel combined with the umbrella palm trees lining the highways were just lovely. We passed a lot of marble quarries along the way here.
And, as usual, the Italian sky is just marvelous! It is one of the things I miss most when I am not here. The sky in NY/NJ is just so pathetic and lackluster in comparison. It’s all grey and the clouds are mere shadows. In the Italian sky, they play around, dance with each other and take on wonderful shapes. They remind me of big puffy marshmallows that you could jump up and down on, and the sky is so blue! Ah, breathe in, I’m in Italy! And at the heel of the boot! Hello, Adriatic Sea!






It looked kind of mirage like, if you will, and didn’t seem real until we were standing right in front of it.
It’s 540 meters high and in the shape of an octagon and has 8 octagonal towers. Its purpose and design are up for debate. Some think the shape of the octagon – circle and square, represents the relationship between man and God. Some think it was a hunting residence.
Going inside was a little uneventful, it wasn’t decorated or furnished or anything, but was still an experience worth noting.
We were being filmed the entire time as well. Guess we’ll be on Italian TV tonight!
Upon our arrival, the owner was waiting for us. Before lunch, he walked us out to his vegetable garden. He said that people come here and pick what they want to eat out of the garden and then he prepares dishes with it. How cool is that?!
The garden was huge! We saw broccoli rabe, eggplant, chili peppers, rosemary, sage, oregano, squash, leeks, parsley, lettuce, onions, tomatoes and a whole bunch of other stuff. 
He even has a 1000 year old olive tree in the garden.
In the restaurant we had a 20 (maybe even more) course meal. Oh my goodness, we were so stuffed! We kept thinking it was over and then nope, more dishes would come out of the kitchen. Some of the best food (and wine) I’ve ever had. Everything was so fresh. 

There were so many dishes, I can’t even remember what they were! I think I gained 5 lbs from that meal alone.
There were 4 men in tights and medieval garb that were doing tricks with the falcons, symbols of victory, and vultures.
I saw the most beautiful owl in the world! It was part of their animal collection, but they didn’t do tricks with it. Its mere appearance was stunning! It just stared with these huge, glowing orange eyes.
It was pretty big too. I asked the guy if I could pet it and he said yes. When I went up to it, it started hissing at me, so I said “Are you sure?” He said, “Go ahead.” So I did. Once I started petting it, it stopped. That was definitely a highlight for me. To pet the animal that symbolizes wisdom. Such a gorgeous creature it is.
(Now I can say that I've touched wisdom (the owl) and caught victory (the falcon)! Mission Accomplished!)

At night we went back to downtown Andria to go to a ‘fokloristic event.’ It turns out that this event was just for us!
They had a local band playing Puglian music and once again MAD FOOD! There were like 3 food tables – one for cheese, one for hot food and they even had a desert table with cookies and wine. Everything I tasted was delicious!


I ate fresh mozzarella, more burrata cheese, vegetable patties, a big bread bowl filled with orrechietti pasta and pignoli cookies! They have this really delicious regional dish here composed of fava bean paste with chicory greens, which you put on top of the paste. It is so yummy! I have to try to make that at home.






Elephant Shaped Cheese



Oh, why didn’t I bring my gloves? Still a little cloudy as well. I hope we see some sun at least for one day! Trani is very pretty though, we walked to the port to get to the restaurant.
The restaurant, Le Lampare Al Fortuno, was right at the edge of the port – and in a big stone building reminiscent of an old fort or something.

I wish I had more time by myself, but hopefully we will get that tomorrow in Alberobello. All these years of independent travel have spoiled me!
Honestly, I’ve grown tired of churches and the like. I think I have also been spoiled by the churches in Rome, and not another anywhere else can compare. But, I'm seductively drawn in by the stunning backdrop of t
Finally, when we were finished touring the church, we came back outside. By this time, the sky had turned this wonderful hue of pink, intertwined with the blue of it’s natural state. I ran up to the railing to catch a picture of it against the sea and then saw the castle of Trani. All of these wonderful colors combined and swirled together from nature’s amorous affair between sky and sea, and the majestic stance of the castle - I was absolutely spellbound by the entire setting. I went to take a picture of it and sure enough – my camera battery died. “No!!!” I cried. “Come on, just one picture, pleeeease!” I took out the battery and put it back in a few times. After the third time, it finally captured a picture of this inspiring poetic moment. Hooray!
Tonight was our farewell dinner at the Tenuta Cocevola. It was very nice, there was a piano player who was playing throughout the evening. I sat with my ‘East Coast’ friends again. We are becoming a little clique. We had a funny conversation at dinner about the bidet.
T, J and I were getting a little antsy for free time, so I decided to go out and smoke a cigarette and walk around. While I was smoking, we walked to some little shops and I saw some protection symbols on top of the trulli roofs of a shop. I wondered aloud what they meant. Next thing, we were inside and T was asking the shop owner. She said they were Christian protective symbols and proceed to pull out a paper diagram with all of the symbols and their meanings. Cool! I want that! I thought.
She said if I bought something, I could have it. Well, before I left my mom had said to buy her a trullo, because she’s been wanting to buy one and live in it for a few years now. I didn’t have enough money to buy her an actual trullo, so I figured a little ceramic one would suffice, and hey – now I get a free gift with purchase! I noticed there were a bunch of magical symbols on the paper that represented Saturn, Mercury, Jupiter and a few other things. Really awesome! I hoped I could find some!
When we got back to the restaurant, everyone was crowded around the tour guide, Sonia, who was giving us a walking tour of the Trulli. She was leading us toward the more boring side of the trulli. (where the more modern part of town is) I wanted to go up into the core of trulliville, where there are 1500 trulli in a village. So, I left the tour and went a walking. Oooh, finally! Free time!!






When we arrived, I was in heaven! The desk clerk showed me to my room and my first impression was personified basically by my jaw dropping in awe. When I entered I was in my living room, complete with a work desk, sofa and armoire. Then I opened the door to my room – crisp white blankets, comforter, pillows, a flat screen tv and another desk and closet.

















After our tour, we ate at a restaurant in Bari. It was really nice, but I was itching for me free time to go shopping. See, I had been looking forward to this day the entire trip! I wanna explore!! It turns out that our time was going to be cut short to 2 hours instead of 4 because we learned we had to go to the Artichoke Festival later on, so I cut my lunch short to have more time to walk around.





The funny thing was, we ended up being the spectacle, rather than they, because all of the locals were crowding around us to see what the big fuss was about.
